


Belgian Chocolate

by TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsG



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Bisexual Sherlock Holmes, F/M, How Do I Tag, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Rating May Change, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-07 16:00:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20312173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsG/pseuds/TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsG
Summary: “I can’t bloodybelieveyou sometimes,” John snarls as he brushes past Adler, poking a finger against Holmes’ chest. “Have you been hiding in here the entire time?”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SpaceCommander](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceCommander/gifts).

> My new mission in life seems to be writing stories where RDJ's characters bang his hot British co-stars, so here we go.
> 
> Takes place somewhere between the two films.

_He’s probably fine_, John thinks as he makes his way up the stairs to Holmes’ bedroom. He has known the man for nigh on a decade, and it’s not unusual for him to fall off the face of the Earth for weeks at a time every once in a while, but still. He’s a doctor, and checking on his friend is professional courtesy if nothing else.

He hadn’t thought much of it when Holmes missed their dinner date the week before. Been annoyed by it, sure, but annoyance is a natural part of being acquainted with Sherlock Holmes. Then Mrs Hudson sent him a note, that she hasn’t seen Holmes in nearly a fortnight without any hint of where he may have gone, and a feeling of dread had settled in the pit of his stomach. Maybe this is it, the end. Maybe Holmes has finally managed to kill himself, after putting in valiant efforts for years. He doesn’t blame his former landlady for not checking on the man herself.

The sitting room had sat quiet and abandoned, dust motes dancing in the silent air, and while he may not possess Holmes’ nearly superhuman abilities of observation, he recognises a room no one has been in for days when he sees it.

At the top of the stairs, he comes to a stop, looks at the bedroom door as he steels himself for whatever he may find behind it. _To hell with it_, he thinks, finally, as he makes himself cross the landing, and he raps his knuckles sharply against the gleaming wood.

“Holmes? Are you in there?” Quiet, and he swallows drily. “Mrs Hudson sent for me. She’s afraid that you’ve died on her, you know how she gets. Do us all a favour and be alive, old sport, yes?”

He’s aware that he’s holding his breath as he waits, aware of the death grip he has on his cane, because despite his lack of surprise if Holmes has in fact died, he is still… scared of the moment he’ll find out.

John may find the other man infuriating, may curse him in the most colourful language, may roll his eyes at the man’s mad ideas, but losing him, especially in such an undignified manner as he fears he may be about to encounter… No. It really doesn’t bear thinking about.

“Holmes?” He knocks again, tries to calm his racing heart. “You better be wearing pants because I’m coming in now.”

Shuffling, from inside the room, and it feels like a stone falls from around his neck. _He’s alive_, is all he can think, even as his brain registers the uncharacteristically light step of the person coming towards the door now, and he has half a second to think, _He’s not alone_, before the door swings inward and he’s face to face with Irene Adler.

Irene Adler, wearing nothing but a sheet wrapped around her small frame and a pleasant smile on her kiss-swollen lips. “Doctor Watson,” she says, calm as you please, as though she is greeting him in the street, and he is momentarily lost for words. “Anything I can help you with?”

John realises he’s staring, he really does, but he doesn’t give a fig. He is just too shocked that Holmes would disappear to the extent that people thought he was dead, all while the man was too busy having his brains shagged out by the woman.

More shuffling, shifting of fabric, and then the unmistakable grunt of pain his friend makes as he falls out of the bed. A moment later he stumbles into view, bleary-eyed, and John sucks in a breath through his nose.

Holmes is not wearing pants, it turns out, nor trousers. Not even a shirt. No, the man is stark naked, and John’s eyes flick from mouth-shaped bruises at his throat to scratches on his shoulders, and finally to Holmes’ face. His lips are similarly swollen, and he’s grinning like a child caught stealing candy.

John wants to punch his lights out.

“I can’t bloody _believe_ you sometimes,” John snarls as he brushes past Adler, poking a finger against Holmes’ chest. “Have you been hiding in here the entire time?”

Holmes possesses the basic decency to look a little sheepish. Adler, on the other hand, laughs somewhere behind John. “Of course not, doctor.” She walks around him, comes to stand next to Holmes, her eyes shining with amusement. “We’ve been to Belgium, if you must know.”

John keeps his eyes resolutely on her face. “What the hell were you doing in Belgium?” They exchange a glance, similar smiles tugging at the corners of their mouths, and John groans. “Forget I asked, I don’t want to know.” He pokes Holmes in the chest again, just on principle. “Next time you run off to the continent, have the basic good manners to let somebody know so we don’t have to think we’re going to find your rotting corpse up here.”

And with that, he turns on his heel, ready to return home to Mary and a nice, strong cup of tea.

“Watson,” he hears Holmes say, quietly, and he stops, looks back at the man, and immediately his heart sinks. Holmes is wearing the expression he usually gets when he’s planning some outlandish scheme or other, and John sighs.

“What?”

Holmes exchanges another look with Adler, and John feels himself go hot at the expression on her face. He’s not sure he will like what Holmes will say next.

He’s also not sure he will _dislike_ it, and that’s the whole problem with his relationship with the man.

“Irene and I,” Holmes says, slowly, calculatingly, and John feels very much like a butterfly about to fly into a spider’s web, “we’ve been thinking.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Thinking about what,” John says, warily. Holmes comes closer, then, slowly, and it’s not until the man gently peels John’s fingers off the cane that he realises he’s been holding it so tightly, his knuckles have gone white with the force.

Holmes smells like sex, he realises.

The whole room does, in fact, but this close, he can smell the scent of it on Holmes’ skin, and he shifts his weight, away from the man. It’s too hot all of a sudden, his collar too tight, and when his eyes flick over to Adler, he sees the knowing look on her face.

“Sherlock wants to ask you something,” she says, softly, and John has to close his eyes.

Holmes is still holding his hand, the cane discarded, and his thumb is rubbing back and forth on the back of John’s hand. It sends goosebumps running up his arm, and he swallows. “Ask me, then,” he says tightly.

“I do not form attachments lightly, as you know,” Holmes says, barely loud enough to hear. John catches himself swaying back in his direction so he may understand him better. “And it has occurred to me that the two of you have shared in all of my most exhilarating endeavours in nearly equal measure.” His grip on John’s hand tightens ever so slightly, and John’s breath hitches. “In all of them, except for this one.”

They’re both watching him, and John fights the urge to tug at his collar. “I’m engaged, Holmes,” he says, and he notes with something like amusement that that is the first thing that comes to his mind. Not that Holmes is a man, no, John has spent enough time amongst soldiers to know that men do these sorts of things. He has read _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ and knows all about the scandalous Mister Wilde and the circle of degenerates the man runs in, and all of that – even the possibility of death if they were to be found out – is quite frankly his smallest concern in this.

No, it’s Mary, and his promise to her.

“I couldn’t,” he says, hopes they’ll leave it at that.

Adler shifts, drawing his attention, as she pulls her sheet tighter around herself. “This is about Miss Morstan.”

John feels betrayal flare in his chest, hot and intense, and he looks at Holmes with a snarl. “You told her about Mary?”

“I’ve told her a good many things, old boy,” his friend says, and the fact that the man is still naked as the day he was born hits John like a fist in the face. He pulls his hand away, snatches back his cane.

“You’re both insane,” he snaps, and part of him regrets the words the second they leave his mouth as he sees the hurt in Holmes’ eyes. Granted, he has often called the man insane and so much worse in the time they’ve known each other, but for some reason, now it seems to actually have an effect.

“Be that as it may,” Adler says lightly, and he watches her cross the room to perch primly on the edge of the bed, “one could argue that your engagement and the promise of faithfulness only extends to other women.” She crosses her legs at the knee, the sheet falling away to reveal pale, shapely calves, and smiles. “And I promise you, doctor, your virtue is safe from me.”

He tears his eyes away, clears his throat. Looks at his shoes, before he realises that looking at the floor affords him rather an eyeful of Holmes, who still stands beside him, and for a wild, brief second he lets himself imagine it. How the man’s stubble would feel against his skin as John kissed him, how he’d react to all the little tricks John uses on himself to reach his peak. He knows exactly what Holmes sounds like in the throes of ecstasy, especially after Irene Adler stepped into their lives, having shared quarters for so long.

The realisation is too much. He feels himself grow hard at the whole sordid idea, and he turns away. “Don’t ask this of me, Holmes.” John swallows drily, shifts his cane back into his right hand. “I need to go,” he says before he leaves, and he is not running away, _he’s not_.

He makes it as far as the first floor landing, to their sitting room, before he has to stop, to take deep breaths to calm himself down. John leans with his back against the door, stares at the ceiling, at where he knows Holmes and the woman are, and his hand palms at his aching erection without his permission.

“Damn you and your blasted ideas, Sherlock Holmes,” he breathes.

He is going to lose this battle, he knows already. Sherlock Holmes has yet to come up with an outrageous idea John wouldn’t support after either laughing or moaning about it first, and John isn’t in the mood for lying to himself.

Yes, he loves Mary, loves her dearly. He can’t imagine ever being with another woman, would never forgive himself if he did succumb to temptation that way.

Holmes is a different matter entirely.

When he makes his way back up the stairs, he looks up to find both of them waiting for him, Holmes now at least wearing a nightgown, with his arm around Adler’s waist. There is a fond smile on his friend’s face, and when John reaches the landing, Holmes holds out a hand.

John takes it, wordlessly, and lets the man lead him inside.

**Author's Note:**

> This is very much a WIP so please don't expect speedy updates. I'll try and work as quickly as I can.


End file.
